Stir Crazy

I've been home alone house-sitting for about 3 days now, and I've already gotten restless. Really, really restless. I can't focus on anything - not even mindless vegging in front of the TV, which I have had more than enough of in the past few days. I can't bring myself to read one of the many books I have sitting in front of me for more than 20 minutes, I don't want to go anywhere and yet I do, I'm going nuts being alone and yet it's peaceful, and over it all hang the twin specters of my thesis topic (which needs refining) and the upcoming interviews. It's a very odd feeling when you've got everything to do yet can't think of anything to do.

It's gotten so bad that I actually went to the mall today for refuge. Refuge. At the mall.

There's only one solution to restlessness this bad, and it is a well-planned and very full day. Tonight: bed very early at 10. Early morning tomorrow, with a rare but very real sit-down breakfast that will include breads and coffee of some sort. Followed by another trip back to the mall to exchange the jeans I bought today. Followed by....

oh, crap.

Sea Scrolls and Sunsets

Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls today at the Seattle Science Center. That was pretty cool. I was amazed at how small the pieces of parchment actually are and how hard they are to read - they're tiny. It was pretty weird to lean over the case and think about the fact that the piece of parchment I was staring at was thousands of years old. One cool tidbit: in many translations of the Bible we have today, you'll notice that the word "Lord" is always written in small caps, like LORD. Looks awkward, no? Well, my stepmom noticed that on the original copy of the manuscript we were looking at, you could see how the word "Lord" was actually written in a different style and size than the rest of the text - the Hebrew equivalent of what we do with the typeface today like we have it today. That was pretty cool.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are important both for Judiasm and Christianity. For Jews, they are the oldest existing versions of many of the prominent Old Testament books, such as Genesis and Isaiah, as well as a fascinating look into the life of the Qumran Jewish sect that is thought to have planted the scrolls in the clay jars and hidden them in the Qumran caves. For Christians, they are also definitive proof of the accuracy of our current translations of the Bible - the versions of the books contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls are exact, word-for-word copies of what we have (in Hebrew, of course). So the next time someone tells you that the accuracy of the Bible can't be certain because of how many times it's been copied or translated, you can tell 'em to do their research.

It snowed last night about 3 inches up on our mountain. That was surprising and also pretty cool.

Also, the sunset today was fantastic. Nothing like driving by downtown Seattle on I-90 during twilight when all the city lights are just coming on. The Olympics were out in all their glory and made for the perfect backdrop.

Welcome to Our World

Tears are falling
Hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised
We've been waiting
Welcome, Holy Child
Welcome, Holy Child

Hope that You don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known;
But long-awaited, Holy Stranger,
Make Yourself at home
Make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile fingers sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorns;
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world

-Chris Rice

Round 1

Interview Round 1 is over. Went okay. We ended up doing things in English instead of German, which, considering the subject matter, was a huge relief for me. I'm going to withhold any specific details about how things went just because it's probably protected information in some way or form and I have a feeling I shouldn't be publishing it all over the internet.

Coming up will be 2-3 hour-long phone conference interviews with the rest of the team. Not sure when exactly.

Again, terrified and excited. Hopefully my restless brain will let me get more sleep these next few days than it did last night (2 hours).

Drumroll...

Fairly slow but nonetheless productive day today. Up at 9, showered, dressed, off to the mall to nail some Christmas shopping. Got maybe half of that done. Off again to pick up sister from school and visit with former German teacher. Back home, time to lay around, play some good ol' fashioned Nintendo 64 (you know, the system that doesn't cause physical injury) and eat dinner.

And now 7pm, with only a couple hours to go before I decide to go to bed in order to be at least somewhat rested in time for my 5am interview. True to form, I'm wound up tight and my heart is beating like a mentally deranged jackrabbit. More irritating than the constant sensation of a caffeine overdose is the equally constant sensation that I am about to toss my cookies. It's unlikely I'll be getting much sleep tonight before the interview.

I need a drink.

*Gasp*

The company in Germany got in touch with me regarding one of the positions I applied for.

They want to do a telephone interview.

::deep breath::

Terrified and excited!

The Perfect Storm

For those of you keeping up with national news over the past week, we've had a horrendous windstorm in Seattle on Thursday night, and since then my mom's house has been without power or heat. It's been miserable, and all I can say is thank God for down comforters and gas burners on the stove. Power is supposed to come back on sometime Sunday night at the latest. Some estimates were running that up to a million people in the Seattle area have been without power over the past few days. It was worse than the storm we had back in the 90s that knocked out power for about 3 days.

I'm now down in Tacoma for the next 5 days or so at my dad's house, so I probably won't be posting much. Got a lot of Christmas shopping and work to do, meaning reading lots of books and white papers for my thesis research.